Social Housing

The private market has failed to provide the people of Greater Vancouver with affordable housing. The GVRD says that the region will need 3525 new rental units constructed every year for the next 15 years just to keep pace with population growth (6). In contrast, only 415 rental units were built in 2005 (6). The problem is private developers are not very keen on developing affordable rental housing as there are more profits in building high-end condominium projects (6). This is where the government is supposed to step in. If private developers are unwilling to provide affordable rental housing, the government should step up and fill in the gap. BC Housing is the crown corporation created in 1949 to do just that (6). Unfortunately, the last BC Housing development project in the Greater Vancouver Area was in the 1970s (6).

The provincial government's latest attempt to deal with this issue is to provide rental subsidy cheques to impoverished families (6). The problem with this strategy is that it does not address the fundamental problem—a lack of supply of housing. instead, the subsidies represent a financial windfall for slum lords (6). The above map shows the locations of Greater Vancouver's inadequate supply of government-funded social housing. These housing units have extremely long waiting lists and are overwhelmingly geared towards low-income families, not individuals (11). Also, this map shows that BC Housing buildings are concentrated in the City of Vancouver, while need exists throughout the region.

Go Back